In December 2007, Blizzard Entertainment CEO Michael Morhaime confirmed rumors that his company had begun work on a top-secret massively multiplayer game. Since then, the publisher has released almost no information about the project, other than it would be so different from World of Warcraft that the two could not be considered competitors. This led to further speculation that the unnamed MMORPG might be coming to consoles.

　　"We definitely aren't adapting World of Warcraft to the console at this time," Blizzard lead designer Jeffrey Kaplan told MTV. "But that's not to say that other MMOs couldn't [work well on consoles]. And we have a pretty savvy group of console developers--a lot of the guys we inherited from [Starcraft: Ghost developer] Swingin' Ape really know what they're doing on next-gen consoles. So we might have a few tricks up our sleeves in that regard."

　　This morning, Kaplan stirred up more headlines about Blizzard's mystery MMORPG. He did so by announcing that he is leaving his post as game director of World of Warcraft and its Wrath of the Lich King expansion to work in the same capacity on the new unnamed game.

　　"I wanted to take a moment to let the community know that I've switched roles here at Blizzard to work on our upcoming, unannounced MMO," he declared on the official WOW forums. Kaplan will be succeeded by game director Tom Chilton and production director J. Allen Brack.